Re: A surprise steam encounter - going to Lethbridge in 1969

In February 1969 I had my first encounter with the BIG bridge at Lethbridge, Alberta, and a surprise steam encounter on the way. In the winter of 1969 I was plotting a way to see the Canadian Rockies by train on a long weekend from Pasco, Washington. It turned out that one could do a circle trip Pasco - Seattle - Vancouver - Calgary - Shelby - Pasco on a three day weekend. The only gap without rail service was from Lethbridge to Shelby that required 99 miles of bus riding to close the loop. I left Pasco at 11:55 pm on Thursday, February 20 on Northern Pacific's MAINSTREETER, connecting in Seattle to Great Northern's INTERNATIONALl for Vancouver, arriving at 1:05 pm. After buying my Canadian Pacific ticket to Lethbridge, I had about 6 hours to explore Vancouver, this being my first visit. Wandering along the water front, I ended up in Stanley Park, and looking across the inlet I saw a white steam plume moving back and forth in North Vancouver. Figuring it could only be as steam locomotive, I ran across the long bridge and found a shay engine busily switching the Pacific Great Eastern yard.





The engine was lettered for "Railway Appliance Research" and was shuffling around with a mysterious dead diesel engine (These days this shay is operating? at Fort Steele BC). I couldn't spend much time with the shay, as it was still a long way back across the bridge to the Canadian Pacific Station, where roomette 4 in car 207 of the CANADIAN was waiting for me.



After a spectacular snowy trip thru the Canadian Rockies, I arrived in Calgary at 1:05 pm and transferred to the Rail Diesel Car (RDC) to Lethbridge arriving at 8:55 pm. The next morning there was time to check out the BIG bridge before catching the bus to Shelby. At 3:15 pm I was back on the train, GN's EMPIRE BUILDER, arriving back in Pasco at 2:30 on Monday morning, just in time to drive home to Richland for a short nap before the 25 mile bus ride to work. All in all a fabulous weekend trip. It would be almost 40 years before 2816 lured me back to the BIG bridge at Lethbridge.